freedom

Rural Means Free

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There are many state lands away from big cities that are relatively unrestricted in their use. They are so free only because they are largely unknown by the public and the lack of use means they can be used extensively without serious environmental damage.

The wear and tear by a few pickup trucks, quads, and horses seem minimal compared to the damage we see in far more restricted urban areas. I am inspired by Rural America and how little us humans have destroyed it compared to the big cities.

People can pollute more per capita and do far more damage then would be permissible if more people where out here. A truck can tear up a muddy trail pretty badly, but many people walking on one trail can do far more damage as witnessed in the Northern Catskills. People who live out here can have dirty diesel tractors, big gas-guzzling pickup trucks, and burn trash without significantly compromising their clean air or their quality of life. We could only wish that to be the case in the big city.

Looking at the Lake

My biggest fear is what will happen when the cities expand further and further out into the country. What will happen with a new class of people coming out to enjoy the land? More people will ultimately mean more rules, less, freedom, and certainly no camping or four wheeling. The area won’t be as beautiful as farmsteads and forests get replaced by McMansions enjoying the mountains. What once was empty roads is increasingly becoming houses.

You just have to fear what it will mean when people come out here and settle the land. Outsiders will start demanding that we change, and that we start following their orders. Rural America might ultimately be the Pine Bush of the future a seriously compromised area that only is preserved for historical memories of the great beauty. Life in Rural America is nice now, but how will it be when country ain’t country no more.

Where I Would Eventually Like to Live

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Yesterday, I gave you some of my thoughts about the urban life — what I like about it — and the key elements that I think I find enjoyable about it from connectivity and accessibility of products and services nearby by walking or taking public transit.

Peru Farms

Yet, I’m in my heart a country boy, and I love spending time in the woods.

  • Live in a small community, with a small city (of around 20,000 persons) within 15-30 miles.
  • Own inexpensive land in hilly, rocky area, maybe 25-50 acres of woodland/pasture that I could run a couple head of cattle on, ride ATVs around.
  • Hobby farm a little bit, grow some of my own food, kill and eat my own animals.
  • Have no neighbors right nearby to bother me, be able to have fires, and burn my garbage (love fire!).
  • Be able to shoot targets and play with guns in my backyard.
  • Relatively low property taxes and fees so I could afford the land.
  • Have ATVs and snowmobiles, handguns and more long-guns, that I could ride around own land.
  • A big 3/4 ton or 1 ton 4×4 off-road pickup truck with cap.
  • State or federal public forest land nearby to hunt and fish on, along with ride ATVs and snowmobiles on.
  • Places in the boondocks nearby where I can truck camp or tent camp for free.
  • Hilltops and ridges to climb up on, look at wilderness and valleys below.
  • Lakes and ponds to swim and paddle around on, and fish.
  • Low taxes, friendly and helpful government agencies.

Coat Rack

There is a lot to celebrate about living in a quality urban community and living the urban life, I sure do love the wild nature of Rural America and the folks who spend every day of their lives in the wood.

Solitude

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I spend much of my free time up in the woods, walking around, and exploring. I enjoy getting far away from other human beings, and camping out far away from other people. Many of the places are so far off the beaten track that few ever go out here.

Yet I enjoy these places and hope they will be forever. Many will remain largely unchanged, others may scum to contemporary pressures be it high gas prices or new technologies such as farming techniques that forever change the landscape. Much land will remain forever wild, but that does not mean that recreational and governmental uses of the land won’t based on the changing forces.

It’s not scary to be alone. It’s enlightening to be up in the woods with no pressures to do anything or be in a rush to be anywhere. You sit and listen to the wind blow through the trees, the water bubbling down the creek, the birds chirping in the air, or the chipmunks running around and opening acorns.

Solitude

I enjoy being alone, with nobody to bother me or tell me what to do.

Why I Love Automobiles So Much

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As much as I despise air pollution, noise from the cars, wrecked landscapes from where they drive, I really do like cars.

Nothing speaks freedom like the open road. Nothing expresses your personality and who you are like your car. Nothing can bring you such beauty as the automobile or bring you just great experiences.

Frame 69

From the dirt road in the Adirondack Forest Preserve to an open rural highway in the Northern Tier, nothing can quite bring you their like an automobile.

My particular passion is pickup trucks. The bigger the better. The better the 4×4 system, the more room in the cab, the more room in the bed, the more lovely.

Yet, I am well aware of the problems of automobiles, and especially their uses of in urban areas. I walked along Washington Avenue Extension, as a pedestrian, and I was a aghast at their noise, pollution, and swarming motions they made.

Frame 77

Automobiles make urban areas ghastly places to be.

There are too many automobiles in the city. Off the beaten track, in Rural America, they truly are wonderful things.

Muddy Chevy Silverado

Automobiles destroy cities, but they are also the best way to get away from the cities.

Why I Want to Move to Pennsylvania

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I really like the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and it’s culture. Reminds me a lot of the New York of yesteryear. Yet, unlike New York State, where the urban culture of New York City, with its nanny-state laws and regulations, seems to have such a grip over the State, Pennsylvania seems to be a lot more wild and free. Public servants tend to be friendlier their, the public land seems to be more better maintained and open for more varied uses, and the state seems to be more open to the ideas and beliefs of rural folk like myself.

US 6 and PA 155

I like a lot of things about Pennsylvania. It has vast tracts of public land in the North-Western portion of the commonwealth, and a healthy base of agriculture in other regions. A lot of state is very rural, and the Capitol of the state is far less metropolitan then New York. While Philadelphia may be a metropolitan center of commonwealth, other areas like Pittsburgh and Scranton are far more working class and connected with the farm land around it.

…even the small things in Pennsylvania are nice.

There is minimal state gun control statues, no need to get a pistol permit and pay money to have every handgun in one’s house listed on a statewide registry. You want a gun in Pennsylvania, you pay money, and it’s yours.The right to farm is strongly upheld, and their isn’t a culture that wants to go after all hunting, fishing, ATVs, snowmobiles, wood boilers, burn barrels, coal furnaces, or natural gas drilling. Rural folk in Pennsylvania do what they need to do, without being looked down at and controlled by the urban folk.

Farm Fields Above the Canyon

I could see some day moving to Pennsylvania, owning some land out in the sticks. Doing a little hobby farming, raising some cattle and chickens and other animals, have being bonfires and burning whatever I want. Owning lots of guns, having a big pickup truck, a quad, and all of other toys of the good rural life. Taxes are lower in Pennsylvania. A culture that isn’t so controlling of everything.

PA 155 Frame 3

The Freedom of Pennsylvania. A state I really like.

Christmas Comes and Goes Once Again

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As a kid, I used to get more excited about Christmas. As I got older, I got less excited, mainly as I realized what an empty and kind repetive holiday it really was. Now it’s just another day, with some turkey and food at the family’s house. It’s great, but now it’s gone once again.

Sure there will be New Years, the celebration, the food, and watching the ball drop. But then the Christmas lights will go dark. The tree and all that Christmas trash will get hauled out to curb in city, or burned in the country. It will be all gone.

Christmas Tree I

The colorful lights that lit the outside of buildings will be dimmed and dismantled. The season’s joy will either go in the trash or into the attic to be hid away for another year. It will be all over but the cold of winter. We can keep the smiles on our faces for another week, but then we are facing the most brutal month of the year.

Albany doesn’t get a lot of snow. But it gets a lot of cold. January’s heating bills promise to be high. There will be ice and snow, miserable days standing out in the bus stop as we work our way into a new year. It’s going to be winter. There will be no more lights or holiday cheer. Christmas is over!

No Pissing Allowed

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There is some things that particularly suck about urban areas. One of them is simply the lack of places to take a piss, particularly after doing a fair bit of drinking.

I don’t know about you, but at least for me after drinking, I usually need to take a piss. When I’m in the woods, it’s not a big deal — every tree works just fine for me. And when I get even more piss drunk, then basically everywhere outside of my pickup is just fine, including the campfire.

Burnin\' Wood

It’s kind of nasty, when your sleeping in your bed of your pickup, and you piss on the tailgate. So even in the sticks, you want to aim outside of the pickup. But in urban areas you have to be much more careful where and when you piss.

It’s normally not a big deal. Especially in rural areas, where they’re be nobody smelling it, and the rain will quickly wash the piss and the nitrogen-loaded compounds away. Nobody complains about when a horse or a cow lifts up their tail to spray out gallons of urine in a pasture.

Grazing

I realize there may be problems with letting people take a piss in urban areas. High levels of nitrogen in one spot will cause the grass to die, as my dog ever so articulately demonstrated with his favorite winter pissing spots, where the snow isn’t so deep.

Then there is whole problem with all those perverted folks, who don’t want to piss but just show off their equipment in our puritan society, which gets people upset when somebody has fake plastic truck nuts on their pickup. We are too much of a honey society that’s paranoid about any reference of sexuality. Don’t let the kids near the pasture when the bull’s out there doing his thing! They might just get idears about what farm animals do.

Campsite at Duck Pond

Yet, I’m sure the major problem with urban pissing, it would just make everything smell like a beef feedlot. As they say, a few gallons of urine being pissed into the pasture, doesn’t really smell like much. Yet, you go to a feedlot, and you know there are lot of cows there, as they are getting fatten up to make your steak tasty.

Cities suck. America should be rural and free, and be a place where people can piss wherever and whenever people want to do such an important activity. This is why we as a society need more acres of pasture, and less of asphalt.